


All I Need

by lone_lilly



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Complete, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-13
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 17:34:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lone_lilly/pseuds/lone_lilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the first in a series of vignettes that will eventually tell a story, although since it's more of an experiment for me (the experiment being to actually write instead of... not), I cannot promise consistency in tone, tense, point of view, rating, or chronology between parts. I reserve the right to rearrange vignettes for coherency's sake, thus, the numbering merely indicates the order in which they are posted.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in a series of vignettes that will eventually tell a story, although since it's more of an experiment for me (the experiment being to actually write instead of... not), I cannot promise consistency in tone, tense, point of view, rating, or chronology between parts. I reserve the right to rearrange vignettes for coherency's sake, thus, the numbering merely indicates the order in which they are posted.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
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All I Need [Meredith/Derek.]

**Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** _Grey's Anatomy_  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".  
 **Author's Note:** This is the first in a series of vignettes that will eventually tell a story, although since it's more of an experiment for me (the experiment being to actually write instead of... not), I cannot promise consistency in tone, tense, point of view, rating, or chronology between parts. I reserve the right to rearrange vignettes for coherency's sake, thus, the numbering merely indicates the order in which they are posted.

vignette I: 

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, it was just barely night but it was raining at least and the sky was kind of a greyish, dreary color that Meredith generally liked because she related to it on a personal and metaphorical level. If it was possible to relate to a color.

She wasn't sure.

Regardless, it made her feel better than sunshine because on perfect, pretty days she either worked, or caught up on her sleep, or visited her mother and all three seemed like failure in the face of all that glorious potential. Or whatever.

Rainy days were more her style because she could do anything she wanted or needed to do and it didn't matter. Even if that thing was curling up in bed and wondering what her next near-death adventure might be like. That was fine. No one expected her to stop and smell the roses in the rain.

She was wasting no opportunities.

It figures, then, that a night like this would be the night the Universe played one of its abysmal jokes on her, throwing _opportunity_ in her face like a drink between soap opera divas, twisting and turning her path until it collided-- literally-- with a man she hadn't seen in almost six years.

It would, of course, happen at a bar. The Universe had an ironic sense of humor.

She was leaving. She had only been there for the length of one drink, a post-my-patient-died-on-the-table drink that she only allowed herself when...well. You get the idea. Just one drink. She could easily have been there earlier, or later, or not even at all had things gone differently.

Just one drink and then she was heading home. Her keys were at the bottom of her purse and her head was down as she squinted inside the dark interior, pondering the complex magic of handbags and how they managed to swallow whatever was inside them no matter how few items she actually carried around.

_He_ was arriving. His umbrella dripped on the floor as he struggled with the mechanism keeping it extended. He jerked it once and managed to bring the sliding contraption half-way down. A second time and tiny droplets of water sprayed her in the face and she glanced up. Then so did he.

There was no romance novel tingly sixth sense about it. No foreshadowing. No marching bands or neon signs announcing his arrival. He simply wasn't there for five years (four months and. . .twenty-eight days, but really she never counted) and then he was.

There.

Suddenly in her life with no warning whatsoever. Again. Smirking down at her like this was some bizarre, amusing coincidence and Fate hadn't just bitch-slapped them both for even daring to be in the same state at the same time.

Which was news to her because last time she checked, they weren't. In the same state. And she tended to keep pretty good tabs on these things so that moments like this never actually happened.

Not that it was difficult. Since he'd left Seattle he had written a book and quite a few articles for JAMA and his name seemed to pop up in idle conversation in the physician's lounge every now and then convincing her that no matter how much time or states they had between them, he'd never quite be out of her life for good.

Which kind of always made her think the universe hated her, like really, really hated her. But then he said her name in that way that didn't sound like a name at all but a dirty word he had invented just for her and she felt her body respond as if he'd caressed her, even though he hadn't touched her at all, and she decided that, yep. The Universe _definitely_ hated her.

The feeling was more than mutual.


	2. Chapter 2

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
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All I Need 2/?

 **Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** M  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".

vignette II: 

  
"He looks sad," Izzie said and everyone turned their heads to see Derek sitting alone at a table across the room. "Doesn't he look--"

"Whipped," Alex interrupted around an enormous bite of his cheeseburger, smirking at Meredith when she frowned at him.

"Sad," Izzie finished, barely sparing Alex a glance. "He looks sad."

"He looks pathetic," Alex argued. "So Meredith broke his heart. Big deal. He's a _man_. She did him a favor."

"I didn't bre--"

"You're just bitter because Ava left," Izzie shot back.

"And you're just upset because Bambi still hasn't left his wife for you."

Cristina and Alex both laughed and no one paid any attention to Meredith shifting guiltily in her seat when Izzie called them both an ass.

Sad wasn't quite the word she would use to describe how Derek looked. Alone. He looked... alone. She couldn't remember ever seeing him alone-- he had always been with Burke. Or the Chief. Or Addison when they were still together. Or...well, _her_.

But alone wasn't so bad, was it? Alone didn't necessarily mean sad or broken. Alone was just-- She wasn't solely responsible for his alone-ness. Burke had left and Addison was gone and maybe he and Mark weren't quite lunch buddies again yet. So, he was alone. That was okay. Totally not her fault.

Right?

After all, he'd agreed to the whole sex and mockery thing. In fact, since she'd kicked him out of her bed that first night, their sex life had basically doubled. On-call rooms, supply closets, even once in his office when he had some paper work to take care of and couldn't get away-- they'd pretty much done it everywhere they could. He came over every night she asked him to and she never had to ask him to leave when it was over. He knew how it worked and he was fine with it.

He _was_.

"Twenty bucks says they're back together by the end of the week," Cristina said, dragging Meredith out of her reverie.

"Fifty says he grows some balls and finds someone else by the end of the month."

"I _am_ still sitting here," Meredith reminded them before Cristina could respond and everyone turned their attention back to her, surprised. She glared at all three of them as she slammed her yogurt cup back onto her tray and stood up.

"And I didn't break him!" she snapped before stomping out of the cafeteria leaving them in stunned silence.

"Seventy-five says _she_ brings home someone else first," Cristina added once Meredith was safely out of ear shot and Alex reached for her hand, shaking on it.

"It's a deal."

\-----

It took him five minutes to answer the page but it felt like an hour to Meredith.

She wasn't really in the mood to have sex but the discussion at lunch was gnawing at her and she needed to see him, to confirm that he was still hers, still _there_. They were broken up but that didn't mean he'd start seeing someone else, did it? They hadn't talked about it and she'd just assumed... but then Alex had said... and now she didn't know what to think.

They were doing the sex thing. They were doing the sex thing and no one had said they were only doing the sex thing with each other. There weren't any rules. They hadn't... maybe they needed one rule. One rule was fine. Safer that way. Less chance of picking up a social disease or a random serial killer at the bar. One rule was okay. They could have one rule.

"Derek," she murmured as he stepped into the closet.

She hadn't bothered to turn the light on when she'd slipped inside and now neither did he. She could just barely make out his profile in the light streaming underneath the door but she could smell his aftershave and she inhaled deeply, letting it reassure her.

He was still here.

"I think we should--" she began but he didn't give her a chance to finish.

He crushed his lips to hers and she took a step back in surprise, gasping softly as she hit the shelves behind her and he trapped her there, his body warm and hard pressed against hers. His hands were already tugging at the drawstring of her scrubs and he kissed her until she was dizzy with it, taking her body from zero to sixty in a handful of seconds.

By the time his fingers slid inside her she was panting. He bit her lip to keep her from crying out when he scissored the tiny bundle of nerves between his fingers and she retaliated by sucking hard on his tongue when he made her come.

She wanted to give as good as she was getting but he shoved her hand away with a growl when she tried to wrap her fingers around his erection.

"Derek," she whined and he cut her off again with another kiss, lifting her in his arms. He was inside her before she could protest further and any lingering thoughts of conversation and rules evaporated as he filled her completely.

He was still here, still with her. Alex didn't know what he was talking about. Derek was hers. No one else's. And he was good at being hers. He knew exactly how to touch her, how to make her melt in his arms and cry out as he drove her to the precipice of pleasure again and again.

Still hers and she was his.They belonged to each other. His ridiculous expectations and her severe emotional limitations-- they didn't matter because they had _this_ and this was all they needed.

And this? This was good. The best. It was perfect and she could already feel the tension coiling inside her again. Her thighs tightened around his waist and she clung to him as he lifted her and buried himself within her over and over until she was nothing but a quivering, shuddering mass of orgasmic bliss curled around him.

His own release came swiftly afterward and she clenched around him possessively as he jerked inside her. The moment stretched on with nothing but the sound of their labored breathing filling the tiny space. They could probably be heard beyond the closet door but Meredith didn't care.

She said his name again, softly, hesitantly, gathering up her courage to ask him if there was anyone else. If there would ever be. But he interrupted her for the third time with yet another kiss, silencing her completely.

And then he was setting her back on the ground, keeping one hand curved around her waist as he brushed his lips over her forehead. Her legs were shaky and weak and she leaned into him to steady herself, holding onto his shoulder when he stooped down to pick up their clothes.

He left a hot, wet kiss on her thigh that made her smile and she kissed him flush on the mouth when he straightened. But he didn't let her deepen it, pulling away almost as quickly as it had started and then he was retying his own scrubs and moving toward the door.

"I'll go first," he offered and before she could say anything else, he was gone, the light briefly flooding in from the hallway making her squint as her eyes adjusted.

It occurred to her as she ran her fingers through her hair, attempting to smooth away any evidence of sex, that he'd hardly said anything to her the whole day. Just now, those three words. That was it.

And it probably meant nothing. This is what she wanted. What she told him she wanted. Everything was fine. Everything was... it was _fine_.

So why couldn't she get the idea of him eating lunch by himself out of her head?


	3. All I Need

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
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All I Need 3/?

 **Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** M  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".

  
vignette III: 

This wasn't working.

This wasn't working and she couldn't figure out why. They were good at this. _She_ was good at this. With him. She knew exactly what to do with him. To him.

He'd touched her, petted her, stroked her in all the right ways until she'd come twice and now her legs were weak and trembling against his waist as she moved above him. She had done all of his favorite things and some of hers, wiggling this way and moaning that way, telling him how good he felt inside her and dropping the sort of hot, teasing kisses on his mouth and neck that always ended up with him flipping them over so he could pin her down and kiss her until he was satisfied.

But today it's not working and she's tired and starting to feel sore and he doesn't even seem close to finishing.

"Derek?" she murmured between shaky breaths, opening her eyes to peer down at him as she rolled her hips in a slow arc, squeezing her muscles around him, trying to find any new, fresh sensation that would finally push him over the edge.

He stared back at her with an unfocused gaze that held none of the adoration and possessiveness she usually found there.

"Hey," she said softly, trying to hide her concern behind a flirty smile. "Are you--?"

"I can't," he interrupted and she could see the panic rising in his gaze, a look she was pretty sure mirrored the sudden tightening in her chest.

"I can't," he said again, his voice growing louder with each syllable. "This. I _can't_."

"Shh," she whispered, leaning down to kiss him consolingly. "Shh, it's okay. We don't--"

He cut her off with a kiss, their teeth clashing together as his tongue thrust forcefully between her lips and his hands slipped down to grip her waist painfully, holding her hips still. Making her stop.

"I'm sorry. I want to. I just-- " he pleaded with an urgency that frightened her and she nodded silently, gently lifting her leg over his body until she was curled against his side.

"You can. You're just oversensitized."

"Meredith, you don--"

"You _can_ ," she repeated determinedly, kissing the corner of his mouth as her fingers combed the tiny, coarse hairs on his chest. "I'll help you."

He swallowed hard but he didn't argue and she took the opportunity to kiss his neck, running her tongue along the length of his ear when he sighed. He was tense, rigid, like he was just moments away from bolting out of her bed but she continued down his body anyway, leaving a snail's trail of wet, open-mouthed kisses behind her.

She didn't tease like she normally might, but she was gentle when she reached his erection, lapping at it tenderly, kissing off the taste of herself until he hissed through his teeth, groaning her name.

He jerked when she took him in her mouth and she rubbed his thigh soothingly as she worked him, tightening her lips in the right way and letting her teeth scrape gently when his breathing started to quicken. She sucked the tip and then enveloped him completely, slipping her fingers underneath to massage the twin weights suspended below and the soft spot of skin behind them until his fingers tightened in her hair.

He began chanting a litany of _I can't_ and _Meredith_ , begging her not to stop even as he insisted he couldn't do this.

She didn't stop.

He could. He was.

And when it was over she laid beside him again, unsure what to do next. Normally, after, there were jokes and teasing. Once or twice he had begged her to let him stay but she had laughed and pretended it meant nothing when she made him leave. Lately, he'd gone without her making him, always slipping out of bed after a kiss that tempted her to change her mind.

But tonight he didn't kiss her or mock her. He merely laid there, limp and silent, staring at the ceiling. She didn't ask him to leave but after a long, uncomfortable moment she rolled onto her side, away from him, waiting for the dip in the mattress that would tell her he was either leaving or moving closer.

She wasn't sure which one she wanted.

"Derek?" she questioned when she had watched the digital alarm clock tick off five more minutes and he still hadn't moved.

"I can't," he finally said, defeated. "I can't do this."

"What?" she asked in a tiny voice full of dread as she turned back to face him. She propped herself up on her elbow and waited but he still wouldn't look at her.

"When you drowned," he began, stopping and starting again as if there were too many words to get out.

"After you drowned, every time I closed my eyes you were dead again. You were so blue. And cold. It didn't make sense that you could still be alive and be that cold. It was like I was just waiting for you to die, all the time. You were alive and you got better, but."

He smiled sadly, "So I hovered. I needed to know you were still breathing. I couldn't sleep or eat until I knew you were still alive. Sometimes in the middle of surgery I'd see you on the table instead of my patient or I would wake up in my trailer and you weren't there and I couldn't--"

"Derek," she interrupted, more harshly than she intended but she had to swallow back a wave of bile to even get the word out.

"I'm lonely, Meredith," he continued as if she'd said nothing at all. "You saved me once. You gave me a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to be happy. But when you let yourself drown, you killed me too. And I thought that if this was the only way I could be with you, it would be enough. But it's not.

I'm still in the bay waiting for you to decide to live, waiting for you to pick me. I want to tell you that I'll wait for you forever, but every time you push me away I drown again. I want to spend every night with you for the rest of my life and you can't even bring yourself to sleep next to me. It's been months and you're not any more ready than you were when we broke up. What if you're never ready?"

"What if I'm not?" she challenged, already feeling that familiar sick feeling wash over her.

"Then I can't do this," he said, finally glancing at her just long enough for her to see the emptiness there before he looked away again.

"It hurts too much."

He waited for her to say something, anything, but what could she possibly say? She couldn't tell him she was afraid he might leave her because he was already leaving her. He was always leaving her. How could she tell him how much she wanted him there when he'd already made up his mind to go?

Sighing as if he'd already known how this would end but had still been careless enough to hope, he pushed himself out of bed, reaching for his clothes and slipping into his pants as he crossed her room. He hesitated briefly at the door but then passed through it, letting it shut behind him with a determined finality that made her jump.

She let him go. Sinking back onto pillows that smelled like him, she thought about all the things she couldn't say and all the things he had until the tears finally slipped down her face, unchecked.

It was time to let him go.


	4. All I Need

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
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All I Need 4/?

 **Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".

  
vignette IV: 

  
There are reasons Meredith Grey should not drink. Sound, practical, rational, _respectable_ reasons she should not consume alcohol.

Just to be clear? She's aware of them.

Which is why she was only going to have that one drink that brought her to Joe's in the first place. One drink.

One single, solitary, lonely drink. And then, she conceded, only _one_ drink when Derek insisted and she found herself agreeing even as she mentally ran over the list of why she shouldn't. (Ironically, most of those reasons involved Derek.) But he kept looking at her. _Looking_ at her. Like he'd seen her naked and then some and he said please in that way that had once convinced her to start fresh with him when everything in her had warned her against it, so really? It shouldn't be a surprise that it would work on her now. Again.

Plus, he was blocking the door.

It was just one drink. What could it hurt?

One drink.

And then one more.

Then she lost count because she was so distracted by his arms. Had his arms always looked like that? He'd always been lean and muscular like a swimmer or a biker, but she couldn't remember a time when he'd been so... built. She couldn't even remember him ever working out, actually.

She tried to picture him pushing one of those weight lifting... things into the air, dark, intense concentration on his face as his biceps bulged and that arrogant little smirk on his face when he completed a set.

And this was why she shouldn't drink because he was talking to her about... something and all she could think about was biting that spot just above his elbow where his muscle stretched his shirt and seeing if he still tasted the same.

She licked her lip and then bit down hard to punish herself.

Drinking was bad. Very, very, very bad.

So was getting caught staring at your ex-boyfriend like he was a piece of fine, beefy New York strip steak and you were a very lousy vegetarian.

Which she would be. Lousy.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that he was very obviously staring at her waiting for a response and still wearing that stupid, goddamned smirk of his that made her want to smack him.

Or dig in.

Or possibly both in either order.

"Um... what?" she blinked, swallowing a mouthful of air and dragging her gaze away from his hateful mouth and spiteful arms back up to meet his own.

Did his grin just get bigger?

"I said, it's getting late. Do you want me to give you a ride home?"

"Home?" Had they really been sitting here long enough for it to be late enough to go home? It seemed like only minutes had passed since they'd first sat down, bantering back and forth over drinks easily like he'd never left.

It distressed her that he could float back into her life so smoothly. It was even worse that she was letting him.

"Yes, home," he repeated, rolling his eyes as if she was a small child and he was having to placate her. "Four walls, full of furniture. Presumably you live there?"

"You're drunk. You can't drive."

"No. _You're_ drunk. I've only had two glasses of scotch to your four shots--"

"Five."

"Five?"

"I had one before you cornered me in the vestibule."

"Fine, _five_ shots of tequila. _You_ can't drive. I'm fine. And I did not corner you."

"You did so!" she protested, a little too loudly as she sat straighter in her chair indignantly.

"Okay," he relented, unabashedly flashing her that grin again. "I cornered you. And got you drunk. And now I am offering to take you home to make up for it."

"Isn't that how you got me to sleep with you in the first place?"

Oh, yes. His grin just got stupidly bigger. And she knew, even in her drunken, porny-colored glasses state, that was the worst thing she could have said.

Really. It was like she could almost see his head getting bigger.

That head, not the other... Oh, shut up.

"Who said anything about sleeping together?"

She glared at him. He loved every second of it, she could tell.

"I just meant that... this isn't... Why are you _here_?"

His cocky smirk melted into something a little more serious that made her feel like she should already know the answer and stole her breath away. Again.

She hated when he did that to her.

The moment stretched on like an awkward, infinite thing that left her wishing she had just one more drink so she'd have something to look at other than him, and when she had seriously given up expecting an answer he shrugged.

"I just needed to take care of some business," he stated flatly and just like that the mood changed again, his face softening as he smiled at her.

Genuinely and honestly and damn if that didn't make her insides twist worse than before.

"Let me take you home, Meredith. I promise I won't take advantage."

She stared at him until she couldn't take it anymore, finally relenting with a nod and telling herself that he did owe her that much, after getting her plastered and everything. And it really had nothing to do with the fact that, this way, she got to look at him a little while longer.

Be with him a little while longer. Whatever.

Really.

She wasn't thinking that. At. All.


	5. All I Need

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
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All I Need 5/?

 **Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".

  
vignette V: 

  
She stumbled up her driveway, cursing the slight incline-- or was that the tequila?-- that kept her slipping precariously on the wet concrete.

She was running. She knew she was running and she was okay with it. Running was good. It was smart.

She'd been stupid to drink, stupid to let him drive her home. Stupid to believe him when he said he wouldn't take advantage of her and even stupider than _that_ when she let him kiss her in the car, her fingers tenting his shirt as she clung to him.

But running? Best freaking idea she ever had.

Except for the part where she underestimated him. That was pretty stupid too.

Because really? She should have known. To expect him to follow her. She should have known he would do that.

And maybe she should have expected him to reach for her when he caught up with her, their bodies colliding as he backed her against the side of the house, his creating a warm, solid barrier against the freezing rain.

But she had drunk how many shots of tequila and how was she supposed to know that all of the resolve she'd spent five years piecing together would shatter completely the moment he touched her?

...Okay, whatever. Tequila makes her stupid. That wasn't the point.

The point was he tasted like she remembered and her body curved into him greedily as he cupped her face, turning her one way and then another so he could--

No! The _point_ was she was trapped. And he was an ass.

A big, hateful, evil ass armed with the knowledge that if he pushed his thigh between hers she'd mewl softly into his mouth and if he slid his hand down her spine to the small of her back she would shiver involuntarily against him.

She hated him.

And his stupid arm muscles that had names she couldn't remember because her own muscles were currently melting into a jelly-like substance that threatened to dump her onto the ground right there at his feet.

Which would probably be more dignified than the way she was currently clutching at him, her hands having curled traitorously around the lapels of his coat when she'd meant to push him away instead. Or the way she gasped in disappointment when he broke the kiss as suddenly as he had begun.

"I thought you weren't going to take advantage," she accused, tilting her head obligingly as his lips brushed across her neck.

"I'm _not_ ," he protested and she could feel his smirk without needing to see it. "I'm drunk. You're the one taking advantage of me."

"What? I'm tak-- ? You are so full--"

His teeth scraped the pulse at the base of her throat and her words trailed off in a startled _oh_.

"What? Full of what?"

"Crap!" she screeched a little louder than she meant to but it gave her power and she shoved his chest as hard as she could. He didn't budge but found her ear instead, nibbling in that way she had once been certain could drive her to the edge of climax if only he would never stop.

It pissed her off.

"You're full of crap and you're taking advantage and I don't even know why you're here--"

"Meredith."

"Stop interrupting me!"

He pulled back just far enough to look at her and it felt like his gaze was piercing all the way through to her center. " _Meredith_."

"What?"

When did the screeching stop? The screeching was good. Helpful. She could--

He smiled. At her. With _that_ smile. She stopped breathing.

"I missed you."

Then he kissed her again-- softer than before but somehow even more consuming-- and she forgot for a time anything else she'd wanted to say.

  
 _Ass._

\-----

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Ten, maybe. Fifteen at most. It felt like it happened in slow motion though, a full-length feature film of nothing but snapshots.

There was the rain that she had barely noticed once he'd pinned her to the wall, suddenly falling like ice on skin that was flushed with heat. It was a welcome sensation and it seemed to her like she could feel every individual drop ping, ping, pinging against her as she arched into it.

There was the way her back scraped across the siding of the house and how Derek must have guessed-- or did she tell him?-- because he-- or she? No, it had to be him-- twisted them in a dance until she tumbled into his lap on the swing. The seat moved every time they did but he kept her steady so that it was only the world around them that seemed to tilt off kilter.

There was the thought, hazy under the influence of alcohol and him, that they could easily be seen from the street and the freedom of not caring because tequila made her stupid and he made her weak.

And there was how she felt when he first entered her, like five years had been an eternity and at the same time, no time at all, because he still fit inside her in a way that had nothing to do with biology.

After that the slideshow ended and there was nothing but tension coiling inside her until she could stand it no longer. She tipped her head back, trusting him to support her as everything including him melted away into nothing but desperate, glittering bliss.

She really, really hated him.

Except, it didn't feel quite like hate just then. It felt like something else she couldn't _allow_ herself to feel and when he said her name, reverent and full of yearning, it sobered her up in a way that raindrops and porch swings hadn't.

She opened her eyes and blinked at him. He stared back at her with a sleepy satiation that made the bile rise in her throat.

"Fuck," she groaned, scrambling to her feet as she reached for her pants.

He hadn't even taken her underwear off this time, just moved them aside and fucked her right there on the porch for everyone to see and she'd let him. In another moment that might have been romantic, how they couldn't keep their hands off each other long enough to make it inside but now it just felt cheap. Like sex in an exam room cheap.

And he was trying to confuse what they'd done with love but she couldn't let him. Not this time. Not again.

He said her name again but she refused to look at him, _couldn't_. If she looked, if she saw...

God, what had they just done?

"I can't," she said desperately, hoping for once he'd let that be enough as she finally made it to her front door, grasping for her keys as she reached for the knob in a futile attempt to steady herself. It turned easily which meant someone had been home the whole time and the thought should have made her sicker, knowing they could have been caught so easily, but instead she was grateful.

It was a little gift from the Universe that maybe didn't hate her quite as much as she thought and she took it gladly, crossing the threshold into the asylum of her home and slamming the door-- both literally and metaphorically-- on the disastrous mistake she had just made. The lock turned in her shaking hands and she backed away from it as if her very proximity could help undo it.

She could hear him hitting the door with his hand and calling out her name so every freaking one of her neighbors could know what had just happened and she did the only thing she could do. The only thing she knew how.

She ran away.

Again.


	6. All I Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appear to be working on this again! You can read previous parts [here](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need).

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

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[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
---|---  
  
All I Need 6/?

 **Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".  
 **Notes:** I appear to be working on this again! You can read previous parts [here](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need).

vignette VI: 

In her last life she must have been a serious bitch.

Not that she believed in reincarnation-- you couldn't when you had spent your whole life running, waiting for everything to stop. Reincarnation, if it was real, would be equivocal to hell.

But why else would she find herself trapped on a broken elevator with the new chief of surgery-- who just so happened to be her ex-boyfriend-- if she hadn't, like, drowned puppies for sport in her last life?

(Other questions she felt were equally valid included why she kept sleeping with him the day before she found out he was her new boss, and for the love of God _why_ couldn't she ever remember to take the goddamned stairs?)

He was staring at her. She could feel it as easily as if he were touching her instead but she refused to meet his gaze. She knew if she did she would only find him smirking infuriatingly at her and it just wasn't a good idea to beat the hell out of him at work.

At least while they were locked in a metal box with a surveillance camera. She thought she might have been able to get away with it if they happened to have been stuck in an on-call room instead.

So, she repressed the urge and flipped aimlessly through a text book she had in her bag, steadfastly ignoring him.

It worked too, for awhile, but she could tell he was starting to get restless after another quarter of an hour passed without word from the technicians supposedly working on the lift. Wiggling his foot from side to side, his sneaker made a soft thumping sound as the rubber bounced lightly on the linoleum floor.

It was distracting when that was the only sound in the elevator besides their breathing and she glanced irritably at his foot, hoping he would notice how annoying it was and stop.

He didn't.

She suspected he found it amusing but the only way to confirm that would be to look at him and that just wasn't happening.

Sighing, she turned another page of her book and she could almost hear the smile on his face.

"So," he said finally, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he scooted closer to her. "What are you reading?"

"Shut up." She meant to sound cold and indifferent; it came out as a hiss.

He laughed and she glared harder at the text in front of her, fruitlessly trying to memorize the steps of a procedure she probably wouldn't be performing anytime soon.

"Laparoscopic sigmoidectomies?" he questioned as he read over her shoulder, the scorn evident in his voice. "You're a _neuro_ surgeon."

She slammed the book closed with a loud thump and finally turned to face him. To her dismay, he had not stopped being so damn hot overnight. And she was right about the expression on his face. Pure, unadulterated arrogance.

It pissed her off even more.

"What are you doing here?"

He grinned at her in a maddening way and leaned into her space conspiratorially. "I'm the new chief of surgery. Didn't you know that? I could have sworn I saw you at the assembly earlier."

Maybe she could just smack him a little and still get away with it.

"No," she growled. "What are you you doing _here_? In Seattle? Why did you come back?"

 _I was doing fine without you._

To his credit, his smile faded from knowing smirk to something she couldn't name in spite of the way it made her heart clench unexpectedly.

"I told you last night," he replied softly and lifted his hand to her face, cupping her cheek gently. "I missed you."

She batted him away.

"Not good enough. It's been five years, Derek. Five years! You don't get to just waltz back into my life and try to pick up where you left it."

"Meredith-"

"Don't Meredith me!" The screeching had returned and she embraced it with both arms.

"It's your name!" he insisted incredulously and she had to seriously jump up and to the other side of the elevator to keep from attacking him.

"You don't get to use it!" There was the slight possibility she was aware of how foolish she sounded but she didn't care. Nobody could make her madder than the man in front of her and right now, trapped in this coffin with him, she was angrier than she'd ever been. "You left. Things were getting better between--"

"Things were NOT getting better between us and you know it."

He was on his feet in front of her before she could take a step back, cornering her just like he'd done the night before. The idea that they were on camera, that other people could very well hear them didn't make one bit of difference to her. She still yelled.

"You. Left. Me. Again! You moved across the country without even saying goodbye. I had to drive out to your deserted land to find out. Do you know how that felt? Do you even have any idea what that was like?"

"Are you kidding me?" he scoffed, pacing the elevator once before landing in front of her again, his finger pointing accusingly through the air.

"You broke up with me! Do you know what _that_ was like? Having to climb out of your bed in the middle of the night, _every_ night, because God forbid you let me stay there and risk showing any sort of emotion at all. You checked out of our relationship the day you drowned yourself in the Bay. I left you because I was tired of being your whore."

The sound of her hand slapping his cheek surprises her and for a moment they stare at each other, stunned.

"Fuck you."

He smiled, deflated, and this time there was nothing irresistible about it. "But where would you run to afterward? We're stuck in here."

To her horror, she felt the humiliating sting of tears in her eyes and she pushed her way past him so he wouldn't see. She really couldn't let him see her cry.

" _Why_ did you come back?"

He sighed and she could imagine him scrubbing his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"We have unfinished business."

"No, Derek," she shook her head and turned back around, meeting his eyes and trying like hell to ignore the pain in them. "We don't."

He closed the distance between them slowly. She had time to move but she stood her ground. She couldn't let herself be swayed by him anymore, even when he cupped her face like she was made of out of china and looked at her with that stupid, piercing gaze of his.

"I still love you."

"It's been five years. I don't-- I _can't_ do this again."

"Meredith," he began just as the elevator sprang to life with a loud groan, sending her stumbling forward into him. His arms wrapped around her instinctively, steadying her, and an eternity passed in a matter of seconds. It was probably the most cliché moment of her freaking life and she hated that ridiculous fluttery feeling that always accompanied being in his arms.

She could not love him. She would not.

Regardless of whatever cruel pranks Fate might try throw her way.

He said her name again but she pushed herself out of his grasp, blinking back tears as the elevator doors opened.

"No," she murmured, leaning down to gather her stuff before stepping off the lift.

"I can't."

She wasn't running this time. She was walking away.


	7. All I Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait and post the next two parts together so as not to keep ending on little cliff hangers, but the next chapter after this one wants to be written two different ways and I haven't decided which is the better choice. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer there.

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[all i need](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need), [ga: derek](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek), [ga: derek/meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+derek/meredith), [ga: meredith](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/ga:+meredith), [grey's anatomy](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy)  
  
  
---|---  
  
All I Need 7/?

 **Title:** All I Need  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".  
 **Notes:** I was going to wait and post the next two parts together so as not to keep ending on little cliff hangers, but the next chapter after this one wants to be written two different ways and I haven't decided which is the better choice. Hopefully, it won't be too much longer there.

You can read previous parts [here](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/all+i+need).

vignette VII: 

  
Cristina would tell her to grow a pair and get over it. Let him go. She would only half-listen to her and then she would dismiss the entire thing with her usual acerbic disinterest. Cristina was a pessimist. It's why they were friends.

Izzie, on the other hand, would tell her to go find him and apologize. Beg him for another chance. Izzie was an optimist, a believer in true love conquering all.

Izzie got on her nerves.

The thing was, she wasn't entirely certain she wanted to do either one. It hurt to let him go and she was scared to keep him. She had been content to straddle the fence and not make a decision either way. And it had been working out pretty well for her until, well.... until it didn't.

It would be so much easier if someone would just tell her the right thing to do. The right thing to choose.

So, she went to Alex for advice. Alex was a realist. She could trust him to give it to her straight.

"Look," he shrugged, stuffing half of a sub into his mouth with one hand while the other slammed the fridge shut. "You used to be mad because he didn't love you and now you're upset because he does. I don't care what you do. Dump him for good and move on or give him another chance-- it doesn't matter to me. Just pick one and stick with it."

Pick one and stick with it.

She took a bottle of tequila to bed and weighed her options. What had seemed so sure to her the night before made no sense to her now. She could let him go and lose him forever. Or she could fight for him.

And possibly lose him forever.

If she were honest with herself-- and let's face it, she tried really hard not to be-- she'd already know her decision had been made for her. Pick one and stick with it. How many times had she'd picked him already?

It was the sticking part she wasn't good at. She didn't stick well. She was unstickable.

She drank until she couldn't smell the two of them on her sheets anymore. And then she slept.

\-----

If she had wanted to avoid him she had no doubt he would have been everywhere. All the time. In the elevator. The hallway. He would have had her assigned to his case. She wouldn't have been able to get away from him.

Naturally, when she was looking for him, he was nowhere to be found.

She'd woken that morning vowing to take Alex's advice. She was going to learn to stick. She was going to become a sticky thing that made decisions and stuck to them. And she was going to start this brave new life of stickiness by talking to Derek.

Who apparently had taken the day off to avoid her. And wasn't answering his phone.

It took some convincing but she managed to swap the second half of her double shift with George so she could drive out to Derek's land and confront him. She planned to tell him everything, starting with the day of the ferry crash and ending with how much she didn't want to lose him. She rehearsed everything in her head on the way out there, hardly paying attention to where she was going as she navigated the back roads to his trailer. In fact, she was so lost in her own thoughts that she'd already parked her Jeep before she realized he wasn't there.

Like, at all.

His land was empty. His trailer was gone. There was no trailer. No deck. Not even the hammock that he'd hung in the back.

All of it had vanished.

She frowned and looked out toward the lake, wondering just for a minute if she'd somehow driven around it without realizing it. No, she could still make out the little wooden marker they'd planted on Doc's grave exactly where they'd left it.

Climbing out of the car, she walked in the direction of where the trailer used to be, still disbelieving her eyes even when she came to the patch of dead grass that had rested underneath it and found it vacant.

She was losing her mind. That's all there was to it.

It didn't surprise her, really. She'd had it coming for awhile. Her job was stressful. Her mother had been stressful. Her friends were stressful. Derek... Derek was nothing but stress. And now she'd finally cracked. Like an egg.

There was probably a pool going on at work to see how long it would take her. Cristina probably had the most money in the pot.

Maybe she could get a vacation out of this. Paid time off while she spent a week in the psych ward eating Jello and watching trashy talk shows. Cristina could come visit her after rounds every day and they could make fun of that nurse who wore Looney Tunes scrubs and....

She didn't even notice she was crying until she saw her reflection in the Jeep's window.

She wasn't going crazy. He'd really left her this time. Really. As in gone. Forever. No goodbye kiss this time. It was over. Really and truly over.

Gone.

He had left nothing behind but her to try and get over him.

Groping blindly for the door handle she finally managed to wrench it open and she slumped into the driver's seat, looking around wildly for her phone. She thought it was in her bag but she couldn't... no. It had fallen on the floor.

She tried his number again.

 _"I'm sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and try..."_

She hung up and called Cristina next, forgetting she had been scheduled for two back-to-back surgeries this evening. She didn't leave a message for her either.

She dialed the third number without thinking about it. She half-expected it to go to straight to voice mail too, but the line clicked over after the third ring.

"Where is he?"

She had not meant to sound so desperate--so hysterical-- but she couldn't help herself. She had been ready to tell him she loved him and now he was gone. She had waited too late.

There was a long pause on the other line and then Mark sighed.

"He went home, Meredith."  



	8. All I need

**Title:** [All I Need](http://la-scapigliata.livejournal.com/18122.html) 8/?  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** PG-Adult  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction".  
 **Notes:** So, this took me a year to write. Sorry about that. The good news is, I figured out where this story is going, so... yay?

 

vignette VIII:

 

She should have known he would follow her outside.

Six weeks ago she would have expected it but he had lulled her into a false of security over the past month, going out of his way to avoid her. No, not just avoid her.

It was like she had completely ceased to exist to him. Which was fine with her.

The first few weeks after that day in the elevator, she had dragged herself wearily to work each day, dreading their next inevitable encounter. She took the stairs. She avoided isolating herself in the research library. She braced herself before rounding every corner and she never lingered at the nurses' desk lest she cross his path.

Avoiding him was exhausting.

But she realized soon enough that her wariness had been for nothing. Once upon a time, he had been everywhere, all the time, dragging her into stairwells and smirking at her over the operating table. Making her want to hit him as much as she wanted to push him up against the wall and kiss him senseless.

But since she'd had walked out on him in the elevator that day, he had left her alone. There were no surreptitious meetings in stairwells. No fake emergencies to lure her into the on-call rooms. On the rare instances they passed each other in the hallway, he gave her a simple courtesy nod full of professionalism and disinterest and continued along his way.

It was exactly what she wanted him to do. And at first it drove her crazy.

Not that she wanted the old Derek back. Not at all. No, _really_.

It's just, well. He swooped back into her life after five years of abandonment, seduced her, told her he was still in love with her, and then... nothing. Like he had flipped a switch and shut their whole relationship out of his mind. And there she was, hyper-vigilant of his presence, unable to go a single day without being anxious she would run into him.

It wasn't fair. Not that anything about Derek had ever been fair.

But weeks passed and there was nothing from him and gradually she learned to relax a little when she was at the hospital. And then a little more. Enough that when she heard he was doing one-on-ones with the surgical staff, she let herself naively believe she might be exempt. As if the balance of fate ever tilted in her favor.

So, really, deep down, she wasn't all that surprised when she looked up into the gallery earlier to see him watching her operate. Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds before he turned and walked out and she knew their brief estrangement was over.

Still, she had hoped to avoid him a little longer, sneaking outside to eat her lunch on the bench in front of the hospital after she had scrubbed out. It was a beautiful day in Seattle, the sky was clearing out, the weather was just a bit on the cool side, and she sat there long after she'd finished her sandwich, postponing the inevitable.

She really should have known he would find her though.

His shadow crossed in front of her before he did and she sighed as he sat on the opposite end of the bench. Minutes passed. She held her breath, waiting. She could just leave, couldn't she? Could she leave? Was it insubordinate or whatever to walk away from an impromptu meeting on a park bench? Maybe she could make an excuse. She did need to go check on her post-op, although she knew he wasn't even out of recovery yet. Still, it sounded good. Or she could make up some other exc--

"I want to offer you a job," he said finally, interrupting her silent rant.

 _Okaaay._ That certainly wasn't anything close to what she had been expecting. A review of the attendance policy, maybe. She'd been late a few times in the last few months and that was the sort of thing the Chief would have always commented on. Or maybe an outline of goals he was making for the upcoming year. But not… that.

"I have a job," she reminded him, turning her body so that she could face him. He sat with his legs crossed casually in front of him, his lab coat falling on each side of his body so she could see the impeccable suit underneath. He looked good. Painfully good.

She should look away. Really. She should do that now.

"No. You have a fellowship. Which will be ending in six months. I want to offer you a full-time position on staff when your fellowship ends."

She gawked at him. "As an attending?"

"No, Dr. Grey," he said dryly and she could swear he was smirking at her even though his expression never changed. It was all in his eyes. "As part of environmental services."

"No," she sighed, rolling her eyes impatiently. "I mean. You don't have any neurosurgical openings. What about Yates? And Smith? Or Peterson?"

"Yates has decided to retire at the the end of the year. Peterson's wife is expecting their third child and he's wanting to cut back on some of his hours. And Smith doesn't want to be head of the department--"

"You're offering me department head?" she shrieked and several nurses walking by them turned to stare. They ignored them.

"If you would stop interrupting me--" Okay, he was definitely smirking now. Bastard. "--Yes, the department is yours if you want it."

"But why me? Why not hire someone with more experience? Someone outside the hospital."

"You're a very talented surgeon. And your colleagues would like to keep you here."

"My colleagues? Or you?" She regretted the words instantly and she watched as the amusement bled out of his expression, his face hardening back into the professional mask he'd been wearing for the last month.

"I want what's best for the hospital, Dr. Grey. Your _colleagues_ want to keep you here and I am in agreement with them that Seattle Grace would benefit from your talents. This isn't about you and me. Don't let everything that's happened between us make up your mind for you."

"I don't know what to say," she answered apologetically. It was the truth. She had applied at several hospitals around the country and had heard back from a few of them already, but nothing that made her heart skip a beat when she thought of them.

She didn't want to leave Seattle if she were being honest and what he was offering was a dream come true. It wasn't customary practice for brand new attendings to take over their whole department, although she knew both Callie and Bailey had done it. And that guy up in psych whose name she could never remember.

Who knew how long she would need to work at another facility before the same opportunity opened up? If it ever did. And at least here she would be directly under a world-class neurosurgeon, someone she could continue to learn from whose advice could be integral to making a similar name for herself….

Still, she and Derek _did_ have a history. A painful one she was desperate to get away from and she didn't think that staying in Seattle so they could work together was a very good idea. And she was really trying to get better at making good decisions.

"I'd like you to say yes, Meredith," he murmured and she felt her name curl around her spine so that she had to force herself not to shiver. He always had a way of doing that, of slipping past her defenses with nothing but a softly-spoken word. Or a look. "But, I'll settle for _I'll think about it_."

"I'll…" she hesitated.

"Think about it?" he finished hopefully.

She sighed and they both knew she was giving in. There was no way she could _not_ consider it.

"I'll think about it."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Title:** All I Need 9/?  
>  **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
>  **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
>  **Rating:** PG  
>  **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction". Yeah, all the way back from season _four_.  
>  **Notes:** So, this looks like a thing that's happening again. Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are. 
> 
> You can read previous parts [here](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy:+all+i+need).

Vignette IX

 

The official offer arrived the day after their impromptu meeting on the bench, the long manilla envelope sticking out of her locker cubby like a neon sign beckoning her to open it immediately.

Instead, it immobilized her with dread. Like a snake coiled and ready to strike. A snake with Derek's face and perfect hair and ripped arms that made her want to know what he looked like without a shirt on. 

As long as it remained sealed and out of her hands, she was safe. 

From herself or from him, she didn't know. And whatever. She really wasn't interested in that level of introspection. 

"Is that it?" Cristina asked when she caught her staring. 

Meredith sighed. "That is it." 

Alex appeared on the other side of her. "You got your letter?" 

"Yep." 

The three of them stood there, arms crossed, waiting for something to happen. Anything. An explosion of some sort would have been nice. Or a time machine. She could go back to that night she ran into Derek at Joe's and just go home instead. Or the night she first met him at Joe's to begin with.

Maybe she needed to stay out of Joe's. 

"Well, let's see how badly Dr. McDreamy wants to get back in your pants," Cristina said when it was obvious Meredith wasn't going to make the first move. 

She grabbed the envelope and peeled it open, pulling out a single sheet of paper with the hospital's letterhead at the top. They peered down at it. 

Alex whistled. "I guess he wants you bad."

"Seriously," Cristina agreed, looking at her with actual interest. "Your vagina must be made of rainbows." 

"I think I'm going to throw up," Meredith moaned as she slumped down on the bench behind her. "What am I going to do?"

"Are you crazy?" Alex rolled his eyes and reached for his jacket hanging in his locker, bored with her dilemma already. "Screw McDesperate. Take the job. That kind of money, you can buy a new soul mate."

"I agree with Evil Spawn," Cristina said. She handed her the letter and then patted her shoulder. "Decision made. Dough before D-"

"Cristina!" Meredith interrupted her with a glare.

"What?" Cristina smirked. "I was going to say Derek." 

"Nice," Alex said and they fist bumped. 

A moment later they were both gone and she could hear them making bets on what she would do before they were even half-way down the hall. She wished she could be that certain. About anything, really. 

Well, that wasn't true. She did know one thing with pretty much 100% conviction.

There was a bottle of tequila in her kitchen and she had serious plans to drink until she saw the bottom of it. Or Alex calling Derek her soul mate stopped echoing in her head.

Whichever came first. 

 

\-----

 

In typical Meredith fashion, she waited until she almost ran out of time to make her decision. She still wasn't even sure it was the right one, but with less than three months left of her fellowship and the deadline to accept the department head position fast approaching, she basically had no choice but to go with it. 

And for once, one time in her entire life, it seemed like maybe, _maybe_ the universe was looking out for her. Because when she went to turn in her paperwork to Derek's secretary, not only was Patricia not around, but from the look of the empty office next door, neither was her boss. 

_Their_ boss. Derek. 

His door was open though and she hesitated outside of it, knowing she should just slip her envelope under Patricia's door and go about her way. This was tempting Fate and that bitch already hated her. She knew better than to take the chance.

Except, she was curious. So, she went in even though she knew she shouldn't and she looked around. He'd only redecorated enough that it was _his_ diplomas on the wall instead of Webber's, the rest looked exactly the same. It disappointed her and she couldn't really decide what insight she'd hoped to gain from snooping. It's not like she cared. She didn't.

She was just curious. That's _all_.

And since there wasn't anything interesting to see, it was time to get out of there. ASAP. She dropped her paperwork on the desk as she turned back toward the door and because it was just the way things always went for her, the sleeve of her lab coat caught on a picture frame on the corner of his desk, knocking it to the floor. 

_Crap._

She stooped to pick it up and turned it over, relieved to see it wasn't broken. Nothing said stalker ex-girlfriend like a broken picture frame of...

His family. At Christmas. All of them around a tree filled to the brim with brightly colored ornaments. Without even realizing she was doing it, she counted the people in the photo, amazed at how many of them there actually were. She'd known, of course. But seeing them all together-- a mother, four sisters, four husbands, nine nieces and five ...no, _six_ nephews now,and Derek -- it was overwhelming. And exactly the way she had always pictured his life back home, which was just another reason on top of many that they were terrible for each other. 

Her idea of a nice Christmas involved making sure she was on-call in case she needed a good excuse to back out of any plans someone else made for her. There wasn't enough tequila in the world to get her through a holiday at the Shepherd house. 

Not that she was imagining ever being invited.

She frowned at the photo, noticing for the first time that Derek was the only one there without a family of his own. It was easy to pick out which husband was married to which sister by the way they were arranged in the photo, and there were so many kids but she could probably make a pretty accurate guess who they belonged to. And then there was Derek. 

_Alone._

Something from long ago nagged at her memory, but she pushed it aside, not quite ready to explore why the idea of Derek alone bothered her so much. It was none of her business. 

Or her fault.

"Hey," a curious voice said behind her and she almost dropped the damn picture again in her haste to put it back down on his desk as quickly as possible.

_God damn it._

"Sorry," she stammered as she spun around, mortified he had caught her. "I was just--"

"It's okay," Derek smiled at her, crossing the room to join her by the desk. He was only wearing his shirtsleeves, the cuffs rolled up over his forearms and she glanced away as he picked up the frame she'd just put down, ignoring how just the sight of him could make her breath catch. Even now. 

"That was last Christmas. My mom insisted on one last family picture before my oldest niece goes off to college this year."

"Oh," she smiled politely and gave that stupid picture another look. 

She refused to look at him again though, instead focusing on his mother. She seemed tired but happy, like there was nowhere else she wanted to be except surrounded by her entire family. Meredith couldn't think of a single picture of her own mother that compared. 

"She must have been disappointed you were moving away again."

He raised an eyebrow at her admission that she'd known where he'd been the last five years and she silently berated herself for giving him any ammunition to hold over her head. The Derek she used to know would have taken it and run with it, smirking in that maddening way that often ended with her pants on the floor. But now he let it go without comment and it occurred to her he had been doing that a lot lately. Since that day in the elevator. He had given her all of the space she could want and when they did find themselves together, he never pressured her anymore. Never flirted. 

The change left her with a feeling of vertigo. 

"She wasn't thrilled," he agreed softly, bringing her attention back to the moment as he set the frame back down. "But New York hasn't been home in a very long time."

She smiled in spite of herself. "That's a far cry from the man who was genetically-engineered to dislike everywhere except Manhattan."

He laughed as he stuffed his hands in pockets on a shrug, "Yeah, well. I guess Seattle changed me." 

"I guess so," she murmured and for a moment there was a palpable Thing between them and she couldn't breathe around it. 

But then she blinked and broke the spell, reminding herself why this was so very, very bad. She needed to get out of this office. She took a step back from him and glanced at the door. 

"I should get back to work."

"You should," he nodded and she was almost in the hall before he called out to her. "Meredith?" 

She paused in the doorway. "Yeah?"

"Did you need something?"

Oh, yeah, _that._ She'd forgotten to explain why she'd been trespassing in the first place.

"I was just dropping off my paperwork."

"Oh?" he looked at the envelope she'd left on his desk and then back at her, realization dawning when she didn't say anything else. "Ah. You turned it down."

"It was a very generous offer," she began but he held up a hand, graciously cutting her off. 

"There's no need to explain, Dr. Grey," he smiled and she didn't miss the way it never made it up to his eyes. Or the very professional use of her last name. "We're sorry to lose you."

"Thank you, Dr. Shepherd," she smiled back apologetically and then before he could say anything else, she fled. 

Her heart pounded as she reached the elevator, punching the button with more force than was necessary. She'd made the right decision, she assured herself. It _had_ to be the right decision. 

As the doors of the lift began to close, she finally allowed herself to look back at the glass walls of Derek's office, and the sight of him slumped in his desk chair made her wonder why the right decisions always felt so wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

**Title:** All I Need 10/11  
**Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
**Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
**Rating:** PG  
**Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction". Yeah, all the way back from season _four_.  
**Notes:** So, this looks like a thing that's happening again. Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are. 

You can read previous parts [here](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy:+all+i+need).

 

Vignette X

 

 

Three things should have told her how tonight was going to go.

One, it was her last night in Seattle and there was a party at Joe's. Of course, there was a party at Joe's. Every thing they'd ever celebrated or mourned since their first day as interns all those years ago had been at Joe's. Or her house. 

And her house was off-limits now, everything boxed up and covered, the few things she was taking with her back to Boston waiting for the movers to collect them. 

So, Joe's it was. And it was packed. All her friends were there of course, but so were plenty of people she didn't know, or care to know; every one from lab techs to residents she'd never even seen before showing up for a chance to drink the night away. 

It would be flattering if she hadn't had her share of tequila for the exact same flimsy reasons over the years. 

And that was the second thing: there was tequila. And Meredith was drinking it. Because it was _there_ and so was she, but tomorrow she wouldn't be, so she might as well take advantage of the situation. 

She was an opportunist at heart. Or something. 

Plus, people kept buying her shots and it would be rude to turn them down. Right? 

Well, she thought so, and then after enough tequila she wasn't doing much thinking at all, so when thing number three happened, she was just warm and floaty enough to find it interesting instead of annoying. 

She was reaching for another bowl of peanuts when she happened to glance at the door and there he was, Thing Number Three, walking in the door. 

_Derek._

Why she even noticed him, there was no point in even questioning. The small room was crowded, people milling about with drinks in their hand, the floor littered with straw papers stuck to spilt beer. But she _had_ to glance up at just that moment and _naturally_ , there he was. 

Second verse, same as the first. Except this was like verse two hundred and fifty. But, whatever. 

Fate was a cruel mistress and Meredith was her bitch. She was just going to accept that from now on, and maybe, just _maybe_ , her life would get easier. 

Okay, probably not. 

Derek's eyes met hers then and he smiled, nodding slightly in that way he had that always made it seem like everything was making complete sense to him in that moment. She'd always envied that about him. Nothing ever seemed to make sense to her. 

She half expected him to meet her at the bar because that's exactly the sort of thing Derek Shepherd would do, but he turned instead to join Mark and Owen at a table in the corner. She watched as he flagged down a nearby waiter and even from across the room she could tell the woman was all too interested in bringing him his scotch. 

And making sure he always had a fresh one. 

Not that she could necessarily blame her. Even in a room swarming with doctors, he still somehow managed to be the hottest man she'd ever seen. 

Maybe it was the way he'd pulled his blue shirtsleeves up over his forearms, emphasizing those same muscles she'd been so fascinated with his first night back in town. Or maybe it was the way he sipped his scotch as he talked to his friends, smacking his lips unconsciously with pleasure. It made her feel hot, remembering what it was like to be savored that way by him. 

Okay, _that_ was probably the tequila. Bad tequila. She should probably stop drinking now. 

But the damage was already done. Like always, now that he had taken up residence in her head, she couldn't get rid of him and she found her attention slipping back to his corner of the bar again and again. 

It became a game to see how often she dared to glance his way without getting caught. But no matter how many times she stole a look over Cristina's shoulder, pretending to nonchalantly scan the room, Derek was never looking back. Not even once. 

And then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone again. The table he had been sitting at was already occupied by a trio of young girls she thought might have been L&D nurses and Derek Shepherd was nowhere to be seen.

He'd left. Without a single word or lingering stare. As if she hadn't even been sitting right _there_ all evening.

He was different now, wasn't he? She had to admit that. All of the times she had asked him to leave her alone, she had never once imagined that he would do it. Not really.

But, then, he'd _been_ doing it. For months now he had given her space. He hadn't pressured her to accept his job offer or been petulant when she'd refused. In fact, her job hadn't suffered in any way, and he'd never been anything but professional on the rare occasions their paths crossed in the hospital. 

And yet, she knew she had always been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Especially tonight when he had to know she'd be leaving the next day. If he was ever going to make a move on her, it would be tonight. One last ditch effort to convince her to stay. 

Right?

Except, for all intents and purposes, Derek couldn't seem less interested. 

No, that wasn't quite right, was it? He'd come back, after all. And she'd the seen the look in his eyes when she'd turned in her declination letter. The way he had seemed to deflate after. 

He definitely still wanted her. She was the one who wasn't interested. 

And that was... that. Period. The end. She would board a plane for Boston tomorrow and then she could finally, _finally_ put Derek Shepherd and his stupid, perfect hair behind her. 

It's what she wanted. It _was_.

 _No, it's not_ , a tiny voice named Jose Cuervo whispered inside her and and she blinked furiously at the interruption in her thoughts. 

Okay, definitely time to quit drinking. 

But once the seed had been allowed to be planted, it began to grow. No matter how much she tried to tamp it down, suppress it, the truth was suddenly lit inside her, choking her. Crushing her. 

_She didn't want this life._

God damn it, alcohol was supposed to numb the hell out of you. That was the whole point. It wasn't supposed to break you in two.

"I need some air," she muttered but Cristina and Alex were arguing over...something, and neither of them paid her any attention as she stumbled off her bar stool, the sudden panic rising in her throat and forcing her dizzily through the crowd and outside. 

"No," she told herself sternly, " _No._ " 

But the tequila made its reappearance anyway, coming in giant heaves that shook her whole body, each one pulsing through her like a revelation. 

She didn't want to move to Boston. She didn't want a decent job at Mass Gen. She wanted a phenomenal job in Seattle. She wanted a man that looked at her like she made everything right again. She wanted Derek. 

She wanted _Derek_. 

And not just in the sweaty-drunken-fuck-on-her-porch kind of way. Although she wanted that too. She wanted everything. 

The truth was, she always had. 

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and leaned against the brick wall of the bar, gasping for air and suddenly more sober than she'd ever been before. 

She knew what she had to do. 

She waited for that paralyzing feeling of terror to take over, but the weird thing was, it never did.


	11. All I need 11/11

**Title:** All I Need 11/11  
 **Fandom:** Grey's Anatomy  
 **Characters:** Meredith/Derek  
 **Rating:** M  
 **Spoilers:** Through "Love/Addiction". Yeah, all the way back from season _four_.  
 **Notes:** Welp, here we are. I started writing this in 2007 and now it's 2016. Life is weird. 

You can read previous parts [here](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/tag/grey%27s+anatomy:+all+i+need).

 

Vignette XI

 

She was almost to his land before it ever occurred to her that he might not even _be_ there. She actually had no idea where he lived now and he'd taken his trailer with him when he packed up five years ago. 

For all she knew, he'd sold his land back then too. 

But she didn't know where else to start so she just kept going forward. Which sounded uncharacteristically optimistic, but that's just where she was right now. One big ball of hope and light, or whatever. 

The tequila was mostly gone from her system and the gas station latte she'd grabbed on the way thumped loudly in her veins. She just wanted to get _there_ already but she'd forgotten just how freaking far out of town Derek actually lived. 

The first time he'd brought her here back when she was dying to know more about him, the hour long drive had only made him seem that much more mysterious. She certainly hadn't expected the trailer at the end, or the way he'd presented it to her as if he were challenging her to choose him. All of him. Just as he was. 

He'd told her to take the rest on faith.

And she had chosen him then just like she was choosing him now. Only now she knew exactly what she was choosing. What she wanted. She wanted _him_. All of the dark and twisty parts included. 

If only she'd fucking get there already. Like, today.

It took another fifteen minutes before she finally turned down the winding gravel road that led to the clearing by the lake, the place where Derek's trailer had once stood in all of its 250 square feet glory. 

Except, there was still no trailer. And honestly, she wasn't really all that surprised to see it missing.

The house, on the other hand, caught her completely off guard. 

And she knew, she _knew_ without a shadow of a doubt, that it was Derek's house. Because it was just too perfect, too dreamy, too _everything_ to be a coincidence. The deck that overlooked the lake. The multitude of windows that faced the cliff and what had to be a fantastic view of Seattle. The freaking pizza oven.

Seriously, who else would build an outdoor pizza oven? 

This house belonged to Derek Shepherd. She was certain of it. 

Just like she was sure there was no way in hell he had built it since he'd been back. It just wasn't possible. It hadn't even been six months and it had been the wettest winter they'd had in years. 

How long had this house been sitting right here? Waiting for him? How long had he been planning this? 

All this time. She'd had no idea. He always meant to come back. 

To her. 

And he'd planned to stay this time.

But he was willing to let her go without ever knowing. Because it's what she wanted. What she _thought_ she wanted. 

Well, it certainly wasn't the first time she'd almost made a bad decision, was it? It was kind of her thing. 

She parked behind the Rubicon sitting outside the garage and jumped out, sucking in a breath when the lights on the side of the house suddenly came on and flooded the area in a bright yellow wash. It wasn't like she was snooping, but the feeling of being caught made her roll her eyes anyway.

But then her breath caught for another reason entirely when the door opened and Derek appeared, his brow furrowing in concern when he realized it was her.

He'd changed into a rumpled t-shirt and the sort of soft, plaid pajama pants she'd always secretly loved on him, the kind that   
made her want to curl her toes into the fabric whenever he wore them to bed. 

The kind that usually ended up tossed forgotten on her floor when the urge to press herself against them became too much and then the desire to have him naked underneath her became even greater. 

"Meredith?" he prompted after a moment when she still hadn't said anything and she swallowed, trying get a grip on her raging emotions.

Like that had ever happened in his presence. 

"I'm moving tomorrow," she said finally, obviously, like he should know what she meant, why she was here, just from that one pronouncement.

"You're moving tomorrow," he agreed and his face softened in understanding. 

He always had this way of looking into her that terrified her and thrilled her at the same time and she shifted on her feet, ignoring the familiar impulse to bolt. 

"I don't want to," she admitted.

The words sounded small even to her own ears, more scared than she'd meant for him to know. It only occurred to her then that he might have changed his mind too. Maybe she'd pushed him away too many times. Maybe he'd decided to let her go because he was tired of chasing her. 

For all she knew, he wasn't even alone. She hadn't seen him leave the bar. There could be someone waiting in his bed right no-

"What _do_ you want?" his voice was gravelly, hopeful, cutting through her mounting panic and reminding her that he was _here_. 

He'd come back. He'd built this house. He loved her.

And she hadn't come all this way to chicken out. She was a grown ass woman. She was a _surgeon_ , God damn it. She saved people's lives. She was extraordinary. 

And they could be extraordinary together. They would be. 

She just had to say the word. So, she did.

"You."

 

\-----

 

She would remember what happened next for the rest of her life. At least she hoped she would. 

His pupils darkened and his nostrils flared as he processed what she had just said. Never in her life had anyone looked at her with such profound desire. Not even him, and that was saying something.

Bolstered by his reaction to her newly-found confidence, she decided to say it again. Because she could.

"I want you, Derek."

This. Us. _Everything_. 

"Finally," he growled and he took a step toward her then and for the first time in years, she didn't take a step back but held her ground, bracing herself for the moment he was on her, fingers tangling recklessly in her hair, his mouth colliding with hers in a kiss that had her instantly fisting handfuls of his shirt to keep him close. 

Not that she needed to worry. He didn't really seem interested in letting her go anytime soon. 

They kissed until she was breathless, devastated, dizzy with the lack of consistent oxygen and the tide of emotions swirling inside her. They kissed until he had to press her up against his car to keep her upright. They kissed until she was certain he planned to take her right there on his driveway and she didn't care one bit if he did. 

But then he pulled away long enough to murmur, "Come inside, Meredith."

And she decided that was a much better idea.

 

\-----

 

His bedroom was on the second floor but she couldn't for the life of her say how they made it up there. 

They left their clothes like a trail of bread crumbs behind them and she was too distracted by the taste of him, the feel of his five o'clock shadow as he dipped to kiss her neck, the way his fingers skipped over her ribs to graze her breasts, to care. 

The backs of her knees hit the bed before she even realized they were close, and she sank down gratefully, pulling him with her, sighing when the warm weight of his body settled over hers. 

"I missed you," he whispered against her heart and she meant to say something back but then he cupped her breast, tugging the nipple with just the right amount of pressure to make her back arch before soothing it with the wet flat of his tongue, and she forgot any other word but his name. 

He moved between her thighs and she wrapped her legs around him, feeling his arousal settle against hers, hard and heavy. She reached down to stroke him, her fingers moving possessively over the length of him, teasing him, reminding him that she knew just how to touch him too.

"Want you," she groaned and it was true, she thought hazily. 

And now that she'd said it she found she couldn't stop saying it. Over and over as she guided him inside her and again when he began to rock into her with just the right, exquisite force to make her dig her fingers into his back.

"God, Derek," she cried out, and then he kissed her again before she could finish the thought. 

Whatever. Thinking was overrated anyway. 

 

\-----

 

Meredith had never been the sort of girl who liked to snuggle. 

If the sex was good, she was too hot and sweaty to want someone pressing up against her afterward, and if the sex was bad....well. It's not like she planned to stick around long anyway. 

Derek, on the other hand, kind of had this thing where the hotter and sweatier he made her, the more he wanted to cling to her after. It drove her nuts, but she was usually too spent and boneless to push him away, and he knew it.

It's not like she could really blame him, anyway. She'd always had a hard time keeping her hands of him, too.

Now, though, she found she really didn't mind the spooning so much. Especially when the way he was nibbling her ear kept her arousal bubbling just under the surface. 

"You built a house," she murmured as he used their entwined hands to tug her onto her side so he could begin to explore her back with his tongue. 

"Mm," he agreed against her skin and she shivered. "I couldn't live in a trailer forever."

She wanted to point out that he hadn't _been_ living in a trailer for awhile, but she didn't want to talk about all of that. Not yet. Not when his naked body was pressed against hers and the scent of the two of them still lingered in the air, enveloping her in a safe little bubble of sex and endorphins. 

She sighed wistfully instead. "It's perfect."

Derek paused in the middle of kissing his way down her spine. "You like it?"

"I do," she nodded and rolled onto her back so she could look at him again. 

His eyes searched hers and she realized that he hadn't been sure she would. Just like the first time he brought her here, he was offering something to her with absolutely no certainty on his part that she wanted it. 

She never quite knew what to do with these rare moments of vulnerability; the idea that she could break him, that she _had_ broken him before, wrecked her.

She smiled slyly to hide the sting behind her eyes. "I mean, what I saw of it."

"I'll give you the tour later," he promised and the look on his face tripped something in her heart. 

Later. Because she wasn't going anywhere. And neither was he.

"I don't have a job."

She wasn't asking for anything, just reminding him that staying in Seattle meant she had to figure some things out, but he shrugged and then as if bored with the conversation, began peppering kisses across her chest.

"Of course you do, Dr. Forrest is only an interim department head. The position opens back up in two months."

"Oh." Two months wasn't that big of a deal. She was still credentialed with the hospital. She could pick up some shifts in the meantime. 

He nibbled his way to her belly button and then his hand found its way between her thighs. "Speaking of opening up..."

Her heart raced as he pet her and she sank back onto his bed, letting his hands and mouth whisk her away again. Her last thought before she surrendered to the mindless bliss he was offering was that she'd almost walked away from all of this, almost ruined it all.

But instead she had ended up with everything she'd ever wanted. 

...Maybe this Fate thing wasn't so bad, after all. 

 

 

 

[last vignette](http://la-scapigliata.dreamwidth.org/38293.html)


End file.
